Conspiracy Theories on the Rise in Europe

The International Monetary Fund fuelled the economic crisis in emerging Europe in 2009 to create a situation in which it would be asked to help bail out the region, and consequently elevate the IMF’s status and importance. The ravings of a fringe blogger perhaps, an angry anti-globalization activist or far-right ideologist? If only. In fact, this statement was made by the Vice Governor of the Czech National Bank in 2010. Statements of this kind from the banking sector are usually uncommon. Statements like this in a time of crisis have however, a long history.

The global financial crisis that began in 2008, just like the depression of the 1930s, has led to a proliferation of conspiracy theories among Europeans. The main reason is simple: “Unorthodox” explanations of highly complex, global, political and social tendencies tend to flourish following unexpected, extraordinary and undesirable events. Furthermore, crises, of any kind, generally provide fertile soil for conspiracy theorizing. Unquestionably, Europe is currently going through its deepest economic and political crisis for many decades.

On the surface, conspiracy theories are an odd source of comfort. Why would it be more reassuring to live in a world where evil, selfish, powerful forces are actively conspiring against innocent people? For many it seems, it is better to live in a world full of familiar enemies—Jews, Americans, greedy Bankers, Liberals, Cultural Marxists—then remain uncertain or powerless. Understanding the economic crisis as the machinations of a few sinister characters is by far more appealing than getting your head around systemic errors inherent in our economic and political institutions.

Personalizing abstract problems like financial crashes is always attractive. Without this human element these problems remain too distant from everyday experiences and too difficult to comprehend. In this extended period of Eurozone crisis, we have seen conspiracy theories about the European Union spread at breakneck speed.

The European Union as an “elitist” organization, laden in bureaucracy and abstraction makes it the perfect surface for populist forces to project their conspiracy theories onto. ecent conspiracy theories suggest that the Eurozone crisis, the bailouts and their impact on member states are all deliberate—aimed at realizing a political master plan. Popular theories suggest for example that certain Anglo-Saxon interests are behind the crisis or that Germany planned it all so as to extend her power in Europe. Some nationalist and populist forces go as far to envision a post-bailout Europe in which sovereign states are dissolved and a European super state and new world order created.

Blaming “out groups”—groups that the majority do not belong to or identify with—for the world’s woes can be especially attractive in difficult and frustrating times such as these. Again, the recent economic crisis has allowed ample evidence for this. The theory that Jews are somehow profiting from the economic crisis, for example, has gained a foothold in Europe, even in countries that have negligible Jewish populations such as Spain.

In France, during the course of the last French electoral campaign, conspiracy theories flourished on both the populist left and the populist right. As Catherine Fieschi, head of Counterpoint UK and participant in the deconspirator project pointed out: “Jean Luc Mélenchon the demagogue candidate of the left has made no bones about the role of the United States against a strong Europe and against strong rival currencies. (…) his ‘populist lite’ discourse points to the enemies of France and the Republic in ways that echo conspiracy.” On the far-right, Fieschi continued “Marine Le Pen’s fully fledged populism relies explicitly on the notion that intellectuals and a liberal elite are forever conspiring against ordinary people.” In Hungary, the radical right-wing party Jobbik and its supporting media has become a factory of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are popular rallying cries and, it seems, great campaign material.

In Poland, Russia has not left the conspiracy limelight since the Smolensk catastrophe, a plane crash that killed the president of Poland and more than 90 other leading Poles. The accident triggered accusations at the highest political levels and as the Guardian newspaper reports “a small but vociferous minority of Poles insist the Smolensk crash was no accident, but a Russian conspiracy involving artificial fog and deliberately misleading information from Smolensk air traffic control.”

While a touch of healthy scepticism and suspicion towards political institutions is an inherent feature of any well-functioning democracy, understanding and portraying the world as a scene of widespread conspiracy is certainly not. Rampant conspiracy theories are poisonous to representative democracy, depict the political world as deceptive, false and incurably elitist—as a world that does not deserve to be sustained at all. An even more worrying trend is that conspiracy theories which begin as populist can easily turn extremist, serving as justification for discrimination, exclusion or even violence against some minority groups. The horrific events that unfolded in Norway in the summer of 2011 were clear evidence of this notion: Anders Behring Breivik’s belief that “Cultural Marxists” all over Europe were in the process of Islamizing the continent is echoed in a wide range of theories such as “Eurabia” and “Londonistan”, in which liberal elements are portrayed as betraying the interests of ordinary people by conspiring with Muslim foreigners.

While conspiracy theories may seem innocent and often ridiculous at first sight, they pose a significant threat to democracy and social peace in Europe and elsewhere. The 20th century was full of conspiracy theories that proved capable of detrimentally shaping history. To challenge this rising threat, a group of think-tanks in Europe have launched a project, www.deconspirator.com aimed at researching conspiracy theories and finding the best tools to combat them.

Why do you think conspiracy theories are on the rise in Europe; what do you think are the best ways to combat them and should we even try?

2 Comments

Some of what various individuals have been writing about may turn out to be true. Anyway, it is a form of free speech.

Consider, what I have been writing about myself, as regards this political EU (see below), that the British people did not vote for, in the first place, and has cost the British tax payers over £300 billion pounds in 40 yeras, and over a thousand, phoney laws, rules & regualtions that have been imposed on our nation!

Yours Sincerely,

Demetrius Skortou

My EU Conspiracy Theory
-------------------------------------

I believe that the 7/7 London bombings were part of a long running secret covert war, instigated and planned by US black operations groups, who set up bogus/manufactured terrorist cell networks, using muslim & other extremists to plant bombs in the UK. The result of which had nothing to do with getting our troops out of Iraq, but to force these politicians to sign away Great Britain's total sovereignty, & other powers, to the European Union, (EU) over the last 40 years.

The EU itself, actually stems from the 1946 US Marshall Plan. Some of those within the American establishment wanted Britain dragged into a one European Nation State, which is exactly what Adolf Hitler wanted.

I am certain that we are not dealing with muslims who actually planned these bombings on 9/11 & 7/7, but, outsiders, very clever creative thinkers. After all, muslims pray 5 times a day, how on earth are they supposed to be able to conduct & plan these terrorist atrocities against us?

Of course, it was muslims who actually planted these bombs, but I believe, a black operation group, did the planning.

Terrorism in its self, never actually achieves anything. Most certainly, the intelligence services have benefited out of acts of terrorism, with more laws, rules & regulations, (including 4.2 million CCTV Cameras) that have been handed to the security forces, which in turn, has taken more of our individual freedoms & liberties away from the people.

False Flag Terrorism is very difficult to prove, however, with the total lapse of our border controls (which I also believe has been a deliberate policy to actually allow these planning & terrorist groups into our country) It has made acts of terrorism much easier for these people to murder innocent men, women & children. I cannot believe that all this lapse in security at our borders is just an accident or a coincidence.

No amount of CCTV cameras, is going to stop someone from exploding bombs on a bus, train or on the underground.

"Combating" conspiracy theories and their proponents is about as useful as debating the evidence for God's existence with a devout believer. It might be more fruitful to invest time and resources to broadening the understanding of psychology, sociology, economics and political science to the general public and help them see counter intuitive aspects of these. Your foundation needs to be commended for all the work it is doing at the practical level and perhaps it or similar organisations could lend some more support in this vein at a more intellectual level, perhaps in an educational/academic context. Only with a higher share of the population who is equipped to think through these issues and who has the will to think independently can one hope less fascination with conspiracy theories and other forms of fantasy. And only then political leaders and opinion makers would be deterred from resorting to cheap populism.

That's pretty much the only hope as far as I can see. But, in any event, we have to brace ourselves with a generalised and growing backlash against reason and enlightenment for sometime to come.